РАЗДЕЛ 2. Методические указания по изучению дисциплины (или ее разделов) и контрольные задания для студентов заочной формы обучения

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build oppositions which are called grammatical( morphological) categories. E.g.

member members

piece pieces

spade spades

goose geese

phenomenon phenomena

door doors

To form oppositions ( grammatical categories) the corresponding form-classes must nave common and contrasting elements in their meaning: e.g. The form-class of the Plural and the form-class of the Singular both denote quantity, but the form-class of the Plural means “more than one” (plurality) while the form-class of the Singular contrastively means “one”

(singularity).

Oppositions in grammar are mostly privative, which means that they are built on the pattern A – not-A. The A member of the opposition is marked in meaning and form: its meaning is definite, and is supported by a formal sign. E.g. the form-class of the Plural is marked in meaning, it is definite, it always expresses plurality and formally it possesses the morpheme of the plural. The form-class of the Singular is unmarked in meaning, its meaning is not clear-cut and definite. It may express other meanings besides singularity: The tiger is a wild animal (certainly not one tiger) or in Russian: Гость ноне пошел требовательный. Formally the meaning of singularity is not supported by explicite signs.

So, to establish a grammatical ( morphological) category it is necessary that two or more subtypes of the same categorical meanings should be expressed by contrastive form-classes. Only one form-class should be unmarked in meaning and form. Other form-classes ( or the other form-class) must be marked in meaning and have formal signs to express the corresponding meaning(s).

One and the same word-form may belong to different form-classes of different grammatical categories. E.g. played belongs to the form-class of Past within the category of Tense, to the form-class of Active within the category of Voice, to the form-class of Common within category of Aspect, to the form-class of the indicative within the category of Mood.

One and the same word-form cannot belong to different form-classes within one and the same category.

3. Factors of modified meaning in a grammatical category

The meaning of a word-form may sometimes deviate from the standard meaning (invariant), peculiar to its form-class due to the influence of the lexical meaning of the word, lexical or syntactic context. E.g. the invariant of the form has dinner is the expression of the present time action. In the context He has dinner with his father at 6 tomorrow under the influence of the specific lexical context (the presence of the word tomorrow) the form denotes a future action. Or in the sequence “What is the child doing?” “ The little devil is jumping over the fence” the form of the Continuous which as invariant is supposed to express an uninterrupted progressive action starts to express a series of repeated point actions due to the lexical character of the verb to jump.

Such modifications of the meaning of the grammatical word-form are called dependent (lexically dependent or syntactically dependent), modified or secondary meanings
Questions to lecture 1

1. 
   Can categorial meanings be expressed lexically?
   
2. 
   What are the means of expressing meanings in grammar?
   
3. 
   What are the means of expressing meaning in morphology?
   
4. 
   What is a word-form?
   
5. 
   What is a form-class?
   
6. 
   Is the form-class the same as a part of speech?
   
7. 
   What is a grammatical category?
   
8. 
   What kind of oppositions is a grammatical category based on?
   
9. 
   What is the difference between unmarked and marked form-classes?
   
10. 
    What is the invariant?
    
11. 
    Under what conditions can the meaning of a word-form be modified?
    

Task 1

1. 
   Individual meaning is expressed…
   
   1. 
      with lexical means only
      
   2. 
      with both lexical and grammatical means
      
   3. 
      with grammatical means only
      

2. 
   Categorial meaning in morphology is expressed…
   
   1. 
      with syntactic functions
      
   2. 
      with phrase-structure
      
   3. 
      with grammatical paradigms
      

3. 
   Form-classes are words with…
   
   1. 
      the same lexical and grammatical meaning
      
   2. 
      the same grammatical and different lexical meaning
      
   3. 
      different grammatical and the same lexical meaning
      

4. 
   A grammatical paradigm of a word is the system…
   
   1. 
      of its lexico-semantic variants
      
   2. 
      of its grammatical forms
      
   3. 
      of its meanings
      

5. 
   Form-classes of the same category should be opposed…
   
   1. 
      in meaning and usage
      
   2. 
      in meaning and form
      
   3. 
      in form
      

6. 
   Form-classes have…
   
   1. 
      no common element in their meaning
      
   2. 
      only common elements in their meaning
      
   3. 
      contrastive and common elements in their meaning
      

7. The invariant of a word-form is…

a. dependent on the lexical context

b. dependent on the syntactic context

c. independent of both

8. 
   A grammatical category must be based on the opposition including…
   
   1. 
      only one member
      
   2. 
      at least two members, one of them unmarked
      
   3. 
      At least two unmarked members
      

8. 
   A word-form may belong to…
   
   1. 
      to different form-classes of the same category
      
   2. 
      to the same form-classes of different categories
      
   3. 
      to the different form-classes of different categories
      

Words of any language can be divided into classes in accordance with their semantic, morphological and syntactic features. These are the main three criteria of classification which are in this or that way taken into consideration by any grammarian dealing with word-classes.

The criteria have limitations.

The semantic principle – the part-of the speech meaning - is misleading because only basic words of a word-class (part of speech) possess it to a full extent. The part-of the speech meaning – the categorical meaning – of “thingness” of nouns is displayed only by prototypical nouns denoting physical objects. The majority of derived nouns still preserve their original categorical meaning. Such nouns as darkness, kindness, thickness, derived from adjectives, still preserve the categorical meaning of adjectives –that of “property”. Other nouns – a jump, a swim, a smoke –display the categorical meaning peculiar to verbs – that of “process”. Non-original, derived verbs, on the other hand, instead of the part-of –the speech meaning of “process” may display such meanings as “property” (to pale, to redden, to thicken, to widen etc) or “state” or “relation” (to belong, to know, to contain, to resemble, to consist etc)

The morphological criterion can successfully function only in inflectional languages. In isolating languages – where words do not have forms –it is useless. In inflectional languages it is helpful only with those parts of speech which possess forms. In English it would be impossible to differentiate particles from articles or prepositions in accordance with the morphological principle because they do not have forms (grammatical paradigm).

The criterion of syntactic function is valid only with finite verbs. There is strict one-to-one correspondence between finite verb and their function – grammatical predicate – in the sentence. But other parts of speech are not so reliable syntactically. A noun may perform functions of a grammatical subject (the apple is red), grammatical object (I ate an apple), attribute (She made an apple pie), predicative (It was an apple) and an adverbial modifier (She came Sundays). On the other hand, an adverbial modifier can be expressed by different parts of speech.

Depending on which of these three criteria predominates, grammarians refer to word-classes as “semantic classes”, or “morphological classes”, or “syntactic classes”. Classifications of word-classes, built on variously ranged main and secondary (derivational properties and typical collocations) principles display great variosity. The exact number of word-classes for the majority of even well-known and thoroughly investigated languages is not established. For example, besides obligatory nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections in French O.I. Bogomolova also mentions determiners, articles, pronouns and numerals. M. Grevisse adds to the obligatory list articles and pronouns; determiners and numerals are treated as a single class, interjections are not recognized. V.G. Gak considers articles and determiners to be one and the same class, and, besides numerals and pronouns, also mentions particles and phrase-words.

There is not a single unanimously recognized classification of word-classes of either of any particular language or language in general.

Within the Russian language F.F. Fortynatov, guided mostly by a formal criterion, speaks of three major classes: complete words, meaning verbs, nouns, adjectives, infinitives and adverbs, partial words and interjections. A.A. Schakhmatov singles out 4 large classes: notional words (nouns, adjectives, verbs and some adverbs), non-notional (numerals, substantive pronouns, pronominal adjectives and pronominal adverbs), functional words (preposition, connective, conjunction, prefix, particle) and interjections. L.V. Scherba and V.V. Vinogradov also single out interjections as a special class. The former scholar claims that interjections should stand outside the system of word-classes for they function as sentences.

H.Sweet divides the English word-classes into declinables (those having a grammatical paradigm) and undeclinables, thus relying on the formal principle. Subgroups within the two classes are traditional: verbs, nouns etc. He also suggests a system based on syntactic properties of words. Noun-words include nouns, noun-pronouns (he, you, nobody, something), noun-numerals, the infinitive and the gerund. Verb-words include finite verbs and again the infinitive, gerund and participle. The fact of non-finite verbs included simultaneously into verb - and noun-words is treated by some grammarians as an inconsistency, but they are actually words of mixed character: they have properties of both nouns and verbs.

Inconsistencies of formal and syntactic properties of words led O. Jesperson, H.Gleason, like H.Sweet to build “double” classifications: based on form and based on syntax (“position”).

According to Gleason only adjectives having a grammatical paradigm could be part of the corresponding “formal” word-group. Words like beautiful, utmost, middle, top could not be “formal” adjectives. But they together with adjectives having a grammatical paradigm could be part of “adjectivals” - a word-group, built on positional principle.

An attempt to classify words into groups in accordance with a single principle belongs to Ch.Fries. He is firmly convinced that words should be classified as elements of a sentence. He chooses three sentences -the concert was good, the clerk remembered the tax, he went there - based on the most typical simple sentence structures of English as frames, and singles out 4 important positions in these frames. Position 1 is the position of the word concert in the first frame, clerk and tax in the second frame and he in the third frame. All words which could occupy this position are called Class 1 words. Alongside with traditional nouns, substantival pronouns like somebody, everything, the others, one, someone, personal pronouns, substantivized adjectives the rich, the wounded also go into Class 1 words, for they can occupy position 1. Position 2 is the position of the word was in the 1^st frame, remembered in the 2^nd frame and went in the 3^rd frame. It is obvious that modal verbs which are traditionally listed as verbs do not go into Class 2 words. Class 3 words alongside with adjectives also include words capable of filling in position 3 - the position of the word good in the 1^st frame. Class 4 words are words capable of filling position 4 -the position of the word there in the 3^rd frame. It is clear that not all traditional adverbs would suit Class 4.

Besides these 4 main word classes he established approximately 150 -160 words which could not occupy four main positions. By expanding the main frames ( introducing optional elements into them) he distributes these 150-160 words, again in accordance with a positional principle, into 15 groups. He calls them “function classes” (and some of them are really functional parts of speech in classical tradition) and designates them with letters. Later they got names (given in brackets)

Group A (Determines )

The concert was good

A 1 2 3

A: the, a\an, every,no, my, our,their, each, all, both, some, any, few, more, most, much, twenty, John’s

Group B

B

May might Must would

have

had to

Be Get keep

The group goes with class 2 words and is a marker of class 2.There are 4 distinct subgroups

Group C ( degree)

Group D

This group takes position before a Class 3 word. If a Class 3 word has the form of the comparative degree, additional words are: still, even, some, much, no.

Some of them can be used in relation to each other: very much too small

Group E

The words stand between words of the same part-of-speech class of one of the 4 classes

Group F

Mostly prepositions

Group G

Auxiliary do,did,does

Group I

Group J

Include sentence units into larger structures

Group K (introducers or response utterances )

Well,oh,now,why used at the beginning of sentences that continue the conversation

Group L

Group M (attention-getting signals)

Group N:Please

Group O: let’s

The absence of a universally recognized list of word-classes for particular languages or for the Language as such does not signify faulty thinking or wrongly chosen criteria. The fact is that the so-called parts of speech form a sort of continuum: there are no hard and fast boundaries between words of different groups. Two, three or more parts of speech may overlap, thus producing in marginal regions units which may have properties of two or more parts of speech without demonstrating the complete range of properties of at least one class. The so called verbal nouns like organization, drive, meeting, comings and goings still preserve some properties of verbs. The statives -alone, afraid, aloof, alike. afire etc - are somewhat different from what is understood by a traditional adjectives, so some grammarians suggest to give them the status of a part of speech, while others are not prepared to be that radical and still treat them as a subclass of adjectives. Why several is considered to be an adjective, while some is a pronoun? Why not establish a new part of speech which will include the words mentioned above and a lot more, expressing quantity? Adverbs like so, extremely are so different from adverbs like seldom and usually, and they both are different from still another subgroup of adverbs -quickly and sadly - that three independent parts of speech can be established, totally unlike each other in meaning, forms, combinability. These are the facts of the language and they do not correlate easily with logical principles.
Questions to lecture 2

1. 
   What are the major and minor principles of classification of words into groups?
   
2. 
   What is the main drawback of a semantic criterion?
   
3. 
   What is the limitation of a morphological criterion?
   
4. 
   What conditions make the use of a syntactic criterion valid?
   
5. 
   Why do the Russian scholars single out interjections as a separate group alongside with notional and function words?
   
6. 
   What criteria are taken into account by Anglo-Saxon linguists?
   
7. 
   What principle is used by Ch. Fries?
   
8. 
   What is the difference between traditional classification of functional parts of speech and Ch. Fries’s “function words”?
   
9. 
   Why is it impossible to give a clear-cut logical classification of parts of speech which will satisfy at least the majority of grammarians, if not all of them?
   

Task 2

1. 
   Another name for a word-class is…
   
   1. 
      a part of speech
      
   2. 
      a form-class
      
   3. 
      a derivational class
      

2. 
   A syntactical class is …
   
   1. 
      a group of parts of speech which may perform the similar syntactic function in a sentence
      
   2. 
      a group of syntactic functions of sentence elements
      
   3. 
      a word-class which is mainly viewed from a syntactic point.
      

3. 
   Morphological principle does not work in…
   
   1. 
      synthetic languages
      
   2. 
      agglutinating languages
      
   3. 
      isolating languages
      

4. 
   A.A. Schakhmatov singles out the following word-groups larger than parts of speech:
   
   1. 
      notional, functional, substitutes and particles
      
   2. 
      notional, non-notional, functional and interjections
      
   3. 
      notional, functional and interjections
      

5. The scholar who suggested dividing words into declinables and undeclinables, and also, noun-words, verb-words etc is…

a. A.A. Schakhmatov

b. Ch. Fries

c. H. Sweet

6. According to H.Gleason, “adjectives” contained…

a. fewer adjectives than “ adjectivals”

b. more adjectives than “adjectivals”

c. as many adjectives as “adjectivals

7. 
   Ch. Fries suggested a classification based on…
   
   1. 
      meaning of words
      
   2. 
      position in a sentence
      
   3. 
      syntactic function
      

8. 
   Class 1 words in accordance with Ch. Fries’s principles were words that could occupy in the sentence the clerk remembered the tax the position of the word…
   
   1. 
      the
      
   2. 
      clerk
      
   3. 
      remembered
      

9. 
   It is impossible to give an unmistakably exact classification of words of language because…
   
   1. 
      an exact criterion has not been yet found
      
   2. 
      grammarians are silly
      
   3. 
      a language is not a logical phenomenon
      

3. The English noun and its categories

1. 
   General characteristics of the English noun
   
2. 
   The category of Number
   
3. 
   The category of Case
   
4. 
   The problem of the category of Gender
   
5. 
   The problem of the category of definiteness/indefiniteness
   

1. 
   General characteristics of the English noun
   

From the syntactical viewpoint the noun is the most polyfunctional part of speech. Among its primary functions are those where noun is correlated with a substance in the situation described by the sentence. So its primary functions are:

1. 
   The grammatical subject of the sentence
   
2. 
   The object - direct and indirect
   
3. 
   The agentive object ( He was invited by his friend)
   
4. 
   The instrumental object (He was stubbed with a knife)
   
5. 
   The predicate which expresses either identification (He is the man who stole the pig - Это тот самый человек, который…) or classification (
   
6. 
   The apposition ( My friend, Mark Brownie, a psychiatrist, has left for Ruston)
   
7. 
   The adverbial modifier of place with a meaning of substance (I saw him in the street)
   
8. 
   The adverbial modifier of time, if expressed by temporal nouns ( night, evening, winter, dawn etc)
   

1. 
   The predicate expressing qualification, characterization (She is a child, He is a monster)
   
2. 
   The attribute (A feeling of sadness engulfed him)
   
3. 
   The adverbial modifier of manner ( He reacted in anger)
   
4. 
   The adverbial modifiers of cause, condition, concession, purpose, time
   

According to the criterion of form the English noun has the following categories:

1. 
   The category of number, which is universally recognized
   
2. 
   The category of case, the existence of which is doubtful
   

Actually, as the forms of the Number and Case are homonymous, in speech only two forms are distinguished [ deı -deız], while in writing four forms can be distinguished:boy, boys, boy’s, boys’. Only irregular nouns give a correct picture: child, children, child’s, children’s.

The subcategorisation of nouns (dividing them into smaller groups) is carried out in accordance with different properties of nouns, such as their semantic, categorical, morphological, collocational, syntactic features.

The most familiar subcategorisation groups are represented by the following groups:

1. 
   common/proper names
   
2. 
   concrete/abstract
   
3. 
   countable/uncountable
   
4. 
   discrete/indiscrete (three houses - three hours)
   
5. 
   animate/inanimate
   
6. 
   personal/zoonames